//------------------------------//
// Chapter 31: Nephrite 
// Story: Anemoia 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

The path leading down into the city was not an easy one. Bit had arranged everything about her lab—even the shelves—and she'd placed each of these to block easy view of what was below. But she'd sliced through the edges, and her crystal ponies had already pushed the shelf aside, exposing the entrance just wide enough to travel downward.

"What is that?" Pathfinder asked, voice frightened. "Even I wouldn’t go below the city. Ponies that go down there don't come back."

"Let's hope they believe that too," she said, snapping the storage door closed behind them. She lit her horn for light—the only one among them with the ability. "I have been preparing for this, Pathfinder. I have memorized every map."

He didn't argue further—either too weak, or too frightened by everything they'd seen. 

Through the old door, Bit did her best to levitate the shelf back into place. But she couldn't see it from the other side of a wall, and had no way of knowing for sure how well she had done positioning it. Somewhere not far away, she could hear hoofsteps pounding in the building. Not Sombra's special guard this time, this would just be the regular army. All coming for them, all ready and willing to die.

What would they have been told? The city's wizard had lost her mind, or maybe she'd been subverted by counterrevolutionaries? Did it matter what lie Sombra used?

She rejoined the other two ponies at the base of an ancient stairwell, with deep grooves in the crystal from ancient hoof-traffic.

There was no sign of what had once dwelt there, no ancient writing to read. But there were plenty of old stairwells, leading down to where the old subway tunnels still ran.

Once at the bottom, the walls weren't so heavily coated in grime and sludge, letting Bit see through to other passages. This was part of what made the lower depths so confusing to visitors. Dozens, maybe hundreds of tunnels stretched away in all directions. Some came so close the crystal walls grew transparent. Others were obscured by sections of stone, or rooms with sides that had been filed and carved until they refracted light.

The only real limit was the light of her horn, which created more suggestions of paths than probably existed.

At the bottom of the stairs, a single cart waited. This one was specially chosen for travel under the city, with only a single wheel and supports that could be engaged when it stopped. By the time Bit reached them, Beta was already strapped and ready. Inside, what little of her research she could salvage was packed away. The most important bits, of course, were recently added.

I don't even know if the body grew correctly. She couldn't stop to inspect it now. Hoofsteps sounded on the ceiling overhead—hundreds, maybe thousands of them now. The whole world shook.

"You planned for this..." Pathfinder said. "What did you plan? What do we do?"

"Leave, quickly," she answered. "There are passages downward into the lower city—ruins so ancient they were poorly understood even in the empire."

She said little else as they hurried away. As soon as they started walking Bit put out the light of her horn—not only would it point search parties towards them visually, but it would also form an active spell that could be tracked. Neither would help their odds. 

When the first signs of the search-parties arrived, Bit and her companions had already made it far enough that they would blend into the shadows and broken crystal.

They walked for hours through the darkness. Mostly they walked in silence, though every now and then Bit heard something echoing behind them. Screams, mostly, as ponies stumbled into functional machinery left over from the ancients and still energized by the Zircon Spire.

It was only after walking for hours, long enough that the sound of ponies trying to follow had faded completely. Long enough that they wormed their way through stone again, with crystal walls that lacked the transparency of the upper levels.

Then Pathfinder finally spoke. “What do we do, Wizard? Keep traveling down, so down the crystals burn to the touch... never see the sun again?"

"It is painful to think about," Bit admitted. "You'll find these caverns aren't so hard to navigate when your memory is no longer susceptible to mortal frailty. I can teach you to read the writing, too. The passages aren't booby-trapped, dangerous areas are always demarcated appropriately."

"The empire has..." Pathfinder still sounded pained, every word a struggle for him. But he fought through anyway. "We have considered sheltering here in the past. I've gone deeper than most. But we can't. It's not safe."

She shrugged. "We have nothing to fear from poison gas—we don't need to breathe. High temperatures are no danger to us. We don't need to import food, or grow it. We have an endless supply of magic, channeled upward from the Zircon Spire. But there's another reason we need to stay." 

She lit her horn, illuminating the passage around them. This one had opaque stone walls, covered in pipes and the strange markings of the ancients. At least they had almost always used vaulted ceilings, so she never felt pressed for space. "Sombra is going to convert as many ponies as he can—we're far more vulnerable to his mind magic. But we can save some of them."

"We can't fight the secretary," Pathfinder said. "Wizard, I know you're powerful. But nopony has his strength. Even if we could get past his armies, he could shatter us. He wasn't prepared to face you this time, but he will be if we come back."

They rounded another bend, into a chamber far vaster than any floor of her tower. Bit lit her horn as bright as she could, illuminating an inert fountain of water, with empty stone planter boxes arranged below crystal lights.

Bit made her way to the ancient console, set into the wall. Crystal circuitry glowed faintly with internal light—even after uncountable eons, the zircon still stood. "When the secretary took me into his administration, he made me a member of his party. In these last few months, I haven't been designing weapons for him. I've been looking for ponies we can save."

She had to stand on her hindlegs to reach the control panel, touching her hoof to the waiting contact. It didn't quite fit, but the crystal interface worked anyway. 
 
Far above them, crystal spotlights flared to life, glowing with the warm yellow of the afternoon sun. Water began to gurgle, then trickled outward from below. It overflowed the center fountain, then flowed down channels to irrigate the various planter-boxes. Empty for now, but they wouldn't stay that way.

"I have a list of ponies we can trust to flee the control of Zircon. We can safely involve their families as well, so long as we properly blindfold them and make the path down impossible to remember. The danger and obscurity of these depths will be our shield."

And if it wasn't, the heat, patches of poisonous gas, dangerous equipment, and cave-ins will probably contribute.

Pathfinder was silent for a long moment. He walked slowly to the fountain, dipping one hoof in the water there. He pulled back after a few seconds, expression resolved. Maybe he really was recovering. Bit would never trade the lives of one rebel for another. But at least this way, Comet Hum's final act would carry on. Maybe forever.

"I want it to work," he said slowly. "What the secretary did to me... nopony should have to go through that. Are you sure we can be safe down here? He can't... magic his way down?"

Bit smacked one hoof on the crystal wall beside her. "The foundation is all crystal, all the way down to the mantle. I know you don't understand how your body works, but know this—it's a magical conductor, one that connects to the most powerful generator of magical force known to ponies. The whole reason Equestria wanted to conquer us!"

If it wasn't for the death, she might've been smiling. But she was still confident. "It's the same reason even the old empire couldn't cut right to the important stuff, and they had to survey room by room. No teleports, no scrying, no way to send attacks." 

She rested one hoof on his shoulder. "I will not let him attack you again, Pathfinder. Won't you help me save others?"

He was silent for a long time. Minutes, maybe. Hours. When they were all made from crystal, it made little difference.

Except now Bit felt the significance of time. Up above, ponies would continue to suffer under the oppressive hooves of Sombra. She couldn't help them on her own. But maybe, over enough time, with enough of them, they could do something.

"How many?"

"As many as we can," she answered. "Not very many at first. But the secretary did himself a disservice—he chose the poorest, the humblest, and the most independent ponies to give this crystal gift first. His armies are still organic—they will not be able to safely follow as deep as we will go."

"A second city?" Pathfinder said. "We can grow no food. We have nothing but what we can scavenge. We can't ever go too high, or else risk discovery. He will not stop hunting us. Anything that can be tried, he will."

Bit shrugged. "Sombra Bolero may try what he likes. But he didn't build Zircon—he's only a conqueror. It's my home, and he can't have it."

Pathfinder nodded at Beta, who hadn't moved with the cart since their arrival. "What about her? Will she be helping too?"

Bit shrugged, following his gaze. "Beta, you may remove the restraints. We will use this room as a way stop for the upcoming evacuation."

The automaton obeyed with its usual swiftness, removing the straps. Then it walked over to her, standing to attention. "User, inquiry."

"Go ahead."

"Unit Alpha is not responding. Please resolve."

The automaton didn't have eyes like a crystal pony did. Its sensors perceived all directions at all times, providing a constant view of the world around it. Irrational as it was, she met them anyway. It might just be a machine fulfilling its function, but that was a noble role to play.

"Alpha was destroyed," she said. "Its core was critically damaged and cannot be repaired. I'm sorry."

Beta did not stand motionless, as the “death machine” it had once been. Beta moved like she did, making constant, subtle adjustments to imitate life. Yet she'd never seen anything quite like this. Its ears moved, and it looked away. 

Are you going to cry?

"Please resolve," it repeated.

Pathfinder watched from just over her shoulder, keeping his distance. She wasn't sure if he even knew what she'd done to the automatons. He'd spent most of his time since waking up as a crystal pony locked in his quarters. But he kept a respectful distance, and that was enough.

"Unit Alpha sacrificed itself to provide mission success," she said. "Without it, all of us would have also been destroyed."

Beta stared back. She could see no expression, but how much had she ever felt without showing it?

"Please... please... please... advise."

"Help me," she said. "Help me save as many others as we can. With enough of us, maybe we can strike back against the evil that did this. If we are patient and resourceful, we may be able to destroy him, and topple what he built."

"Instructions... instructions acknowledged," Beta said. "This unit will help."

Now Bit let herself smile. She turned back to Pathfinder, levitating something out from her meager cart of supplies. A rolled map. "Beta is helping too," she said. "That makes three. Is that enough?"

"I don't know," Pathfinder said. "But all those years ago, I bet the first revolutionaries felt like this. Just a few ponies against the empire. They conquered evil. Maybe... maybe we can too."